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A proposed $70 million program that would have temporarily offered health-care benefits to
roughly 10,000 uninsured Columbus residents appears unlikely to happen.

The office that oversees the state’s Medicaid program declined Ohio State University’s request
to create and oversee such a program through a Medicaid waiver, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s
decision in June on the federal health-care overhaul.

The federal overhaul had originally mandated a nationwide expansion of the federally and
state-funded Medicaid program beginning in 2014, but the Supreme Court ruled that any expansion
would be optional for states.

Gov. John Kasich proposed a Medicaid expansion as part of his budget, which is currently under
consideration by the legislature. That expansion would cover an estimated 275,000 uninsured
Ohioans.

State officials told Ohio State in October that they didn’t want to authorize a patchwork of
regional waivers such as that proposed by the university. The state’s Office of Medical Assistance
said in an email that such waivers could pre-empt the legislative process, “which is really the
most appropriate forum to address the propriety of the Medicaid expansion.”

The state and federal governments approved a similar Medicaid waiver program for MetroHealth in
Cleveland, which began providing coverage last month for as many as 30,000 uninsured residents of
Cuyahoga County.State officials said they approved the MetroHealth program because that hospital
system had been farther along than Ohio State in setting up its program when the Supreme Court
issued its ruling.

MetroHealth is financing its program with $36 million in local levy money, to be matched with
$64 million in federal Medicaid money. No state money will be used.

Ohio State’s program would have been funded with about $25 million from the university and $45
million from the federal government. Meant to slow the growth of the OSU hospital system’s
uncompensated care, the program would have targeted people who live in four ZIP codes near
university hospital facilities: 43201, 43203, 43205 and 43211. It would have covered physician and
hospital services, a prescription-drug benefit and durable medical equipment. It also would have
been a closed-provider network, meaning that enrollees could get services only through the
university’s Wexner Medical Center.

Ohio State had originally hoped to operate the program from October of last year through the end
of 2013 as a 15-month trial balloon of the Medicaid expansion.